Gas turbine engines generally include a compressor, a combustor, and a turbine. Compressed air discharged from the compressor mixes with fuel in the combustor creating hot combustion gases, which are then directed to the turbine where they expand to provide rotation of a turbine rotor. Due to the high temperature of the hot combustion gases and high pressure ratios, both static and rotating components of the turbine, such as rotor blades, guide vanes, and disks, are subjected to high temperatures resulting from contact with the hot combustion gases. Cooling of these components is important to ensure that the engine operates properly and safely. To accomplish this, gas turbine engines often include an internal cooling system that incorporate cooling circuits through which a cooling fluid, such as air, is distributed to the various components.
The internal cooling systems may include a pre-swirl nozzle. The pre-swirl nozzle generally reduces losses in the cooling fluid flowing to the turbine rotor, effectively accelerating the cooling fluid, and thereby reducing the cooling fluid temperature. Most pre-swirl nozzles are either integral with or hard mounted to the aft inner casing of the combustor. Such hard-mounting offers little flexibility for tailoring material properties or geometry to match rotating seal fin growth to seal land growth throughout a flight cycle.